Security Operations in Aceh ~ The Most Secret History in The World

"No Body Knows behind The Fact of Rebellion in Indonesia, We Only know that rebellion is worst. So who is the most benefit from that rebellion? You'll never predict it before. Open Ur mind 'n eyes."

Indonesian Military and U.S. Business: A Winning Combination?

Reports from the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council, and a growing consensus within the Bush administration all view the military as central to Indonesia’s stability, especially in the strife ridden provinces of Irian Jaya and Aceh. But the characterization of the military as a stabilizing force ignores the military’s strong incentives for prolonging and exacerbating conflict in Aceh and Irian Jaya.

In an exhaustive report, Trifungsi: The Role of the Indonesian Military in Business, Lesley McCulloch, a researcher for the Bonn International Center for Conversion, describes the synergistic relationship between multinational corporations wary of unrest and soldiers in need of extra money. As much as 80% of the military’s budget comes from illegal activities like drug smuggling, prostitution and illegal casinos and security arrangements with corporations like ExxonMobil and Freeport McMoRan.[73]

Former Defense Minister Juwono conceded in an interview with McCulloch that "elements within the military had incited the unrest experienced by Freeport in order to highlight the benefits of their presence," leading the company to forfeit $35 million to the military, in addition to an annual payment of $11 million.[74] In Aceh, soldiers sell their weapons to the guerillas for as little as $6, ensuring their enemies remain a potent force.[75] Many soldiers and officials go so far as to refer to the Aceh fight as a "project," highlighting the role the war plays in filling their pockets, winning them promotions and keeping the institution as a whole powerful and relevant.[76]

While this is a winning combination for the Indonesian military and multinational corporations like ExxonMobil and Freeport, not to mention a vital market for U.S. weapons manufacturers, the people who live and work in the areas "protected" by the Indonesian military gain nothing but more suffering. Until this dynamic can be fully outlined and understood, arguments for arming the Indonesian military in order to ensure stability and end conflict must not be taken at face value.

Related Under this articles: A Stabilizing force by military in Indonesia
Source:Indonesia at the Crossroads
A Special Report
by Frida Berrigan
September 2001
Indonesia is "on the road to becoming a real democracy."
Paul Wolfowitz, former Ambassador to Indonesia and current Deputy Secretary of Defense

Link on:
Indonesia's War over Aceh: Last Stand on Mecca's Porch (Politics in Asia)
Indonesia-US Military Alliance Is Being Revived; Jakarta Mulls Leaving OPEC.: An article from: APS Diplomat News Service
Disarming politics: if Aceh's military is to leave politics to the people, Indonesia's must as well.(INDONESIA): An article from: New Internationalist

United States Policy Towards Indonesia in the Truman and Eisenhower Years
The Forces Postal Service in Borneo During the Confrontation with Indonesia 1962-1966
Economic Crisis and Vulnerability: The Story from Southeast Asia
Aceh, Indonesia: Securing the Insecure State (The Ethnography of Political Violence)

Book's review:

Indonesia's Use of Military Force

Out of Business and on Budget

Indonesia's War over Aceh

Security Operations in Aceh

Indonesian Military: A Stabilizing Force for Whom?

The most salient arguments for the resumption of military aid are made on behalf of Aceh and Irian Jaya. In these beleaguered provinces separatist movements, recently reinvigorated by East Timor’s hard-won success, have been struggling for decades.

Perhaps that is the reason why Indonesia has many struggle which want own autonomy for their region, control their region by theirself without any force from central government because they think that Central Government not fair for allocate the annual budget to the local region. Bad diplomatic policy in the International court make Indonesia territory become disappear one by one, Indonesia Diplomat can't make a good deal to keeping the Indonesia territory. This situation also worsened by military operations that hedge human rights in the disputes regional. Conflict between local people and military made the situation more complicated.

The Fact in Aceh:

This oil-rich western province is located at the head of the Malacca strait that links the Pacific and Indian oceans-- one of the most strategic waterways in the world. While most Americans would be hard pressed to find Aceh on a map, its oil wealth is key to Jakarta’s power and extremely valuable for U.S. corporations. The New York Times acknowledged Aceh’s centrality when it noted that the province of 4.1 million people, "is far more important to Indonesia’s future and that of South East Asia than East Timor ever was." Aceh’s oil and other commodities contribute 20% of Indonesia’s annual budget, but only 1% is reinvested into the province.

In the late 1980s, in response to the burgeoning movement for independence, Jakarta declared the province a "Military Operations Area" (known by its Indonesian acronym DOM). During the DOM era, thousands of Acehnese civilians were killed, raped, tortured, and abducted. The DOM was lifted in August 1998, but the violence continues. During two days in November 2000, more than a hundred unarmed Acehnese civilians attending a rally were shot dead by security forces. Last year at least one thousand people, mostly civilians and separatists guerrillas, were killed—three times the number killed in 1999. The death toll for this year has already exceeded 1,100.

For the most part, the war in Aceh has taken place beneath the radar screen of Western media and politics. But two brutal incidents in late 2000 brought the plight the Acehnese and the role of U.S. weapons to the front pages of American newspapers. Jafar Siddiq Hamzah, a prominent Acehnese lawyer with permanent residence in the U.S., was working for human rights and a peaceful resolution to the conflict when he was disappeared, tortured and murdered. His body was found in September 2000 along with four other unidentified bodies in an area that the military frequently uses to dispose of bodies. A few months later, "military death squads" killed three Acehnese working for a Danish aid group. A survivor of the attack was able to give his testimony to Human Rights Watch before going into hiding. He reported that the leader "carried a machine gun, I think it was an M-16, and had an FN pistol on his waist. Another one had a machine gun with a grenade launcher attached. The commander…had a pistol and an automatic rifle, most of the others also carried rifles."

From the U.S. perspective, Aceh is important as a location for U.S.-owned oil companies, but their presence has not encouraged respect for human rights. ExxonMobil, the largest publicly held corporation in the United States, has a huge oil and gas operation in Aceh. The company was sued in June by International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of eleven Acehnese who lived and worked near ExxonMobil’s operations. The villagers contend that they and their families have been the victims of murder, torture, kidnapping and rape at the hands of Indonesian military units guarding ExxonMobil’s gas fields. The suit, filed in Washington, DC, charges that the company provided the Indonesian military with logistical and material support, including:

• Buildings used by the Kopassus (Indonesian Special Forces) units to "interrogate, torture and murder Acehnese civilians."
• Heavy equipment like excavators used by the military to dig mass graves.
• Access to ExxonMobil constructed roads to transport victims to mass grave sites.

This collaboration demonstrates the two party’s mutual goal of maintaining Indonesian control of the province. The IFRF suit claims that the ExxonMobil fears that the "creation of an independent state for the people of Aceh as the result of a democratic uprising" would nullify their "business arrangement with the Indonesian government." Until March 2000, when ExxonMobil suspended operations after a spate of attacks on their pipeline, Jakarta received an estimated $100 million in revenue from the company every month. In an effort to ensure their revenue stream and reassure ExxonMobil, Jakarta sent three additional battalions of troops and an armored calvary unit to beef up security in the region. ExxonMobil resumed limited production a few months later.

Related under this Articles: Indonesia Military and U.S business

Source: Indonesia at the Crossroads
A Special Report
by Frida Berrigan
September 2001
Indonesia is "on the road to becoming a real democracy."
Paul Wolfowitz, former Ambassador to Indonesia and current Deputy Secretary of Defense

Link on:
Masters of terror: Indonesia's military & violence in East Timor in 1999 (Canberra papers on strategy & defence)
Indonesia's War over Aceh: Last Stand on Mecca's Porch (Politics in Asia)
Emergency and Confrontation: Australian Military Operations in Malaya and Borneo 1950-1966 (Official History of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1948-1975)

Book's review: